A Tale of Three Churches: Part 2

Nearly eighteen hundred years ago, a famous man sardonically asked: "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" As Orthodox Christians, we know that there is an answer and that answer is "Very much!" In the same way, we have seen that New York City has much to do with Jerusalem – as the world's two most famous cenotaphs are located in each. But we began last issue with three Churches in our tale, and it is time now to include that third House of the Lord, and to behold how all three are intertwined in the work of salvation and history.

The Saint Nicholas Church at Ground Zero draws its most fundamental inspiration from the Church that for more than a thousand years, was not only the largest church structure in the world, but was among the largest structures of any kind, Hagia Sophia. But unlike the pyramids of the pharaohs, Hagia Sophia was a living, breathing building – the Cathedral of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople for nearly one thousand years.

Hagia Sophia, the Church of Holy Wisdom, was named in honor of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Wisdom (Sophia) of God, and the Word (Logos) of God. Through the centuries after its completion (when Justinian is said to exclaimed, "Solomon, I have outdone thee!"), many other churches were inspired by it, but none equaled it. Thus, it came to be known as the "Great Church of Christ," an epithet worthily used to this day for the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Santiago Calatrava's design for the Saint Nicholas Church at Ground Zero was inspired by Hagia Sophia. The forty ribs in the dome of the original will be mirrored in forty ribs in the dome of Saint Nicholas. The dedication to filling the space with ethereal light is the same in each. Obviously, there can be no comparison of physical size, but there can be notice of worldwide significance. Hagia Sophia was built as an act of love and worship for our Creator, Who loved us first and so much that He gave His Only-Begotten Son for us. Saint Nicholas was destroyed in a senseless act of violence and hatred, but is being rebuilt as a witness to love and worship, and as a sign that true religion and faith is creative and produces love, mercy and hope.

Where Saint Nicholas and Hagia Sophia intersect with history comes through the Anastasis, the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. As is well known, when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Muslims on May 29, 1453 – after three days of pillaging and murder – the Great Church was forcibly converted into a mosque. This remained true until 1935, when Hagia Sophia became a museum in the wake of the secularization of the Turkish State and the aftermath of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I.

What a different course happened for the Anastasis in Jerusalem. After the Siege of Jerusalem in 637 by Muslim armies pouring out of the Arabian Peninsula, the sainted Patriarch Sophronios agreed to surrender the Holy City only to the Caliph, Omar. Omar traveled to Jerusalem and was received by the Patriarch, who showed him the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where he invited Omar to pray. Omar respectfully declined saying that if he did, his men would seize the Church for themselves. Instead he prayed across the courtyard, and to this day, the mosque there is called "the Mosque of Omar."

The irony of the present day is that there is now a push from government quarters in Turkey to once again seize Hagia Sophia and use it as a mosque. Unfortunately, this has already happened to the site of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, Hagia Sophia in Nicea (modern Iznik,) and the 12th century Hagia Sophia, a masterpiece of Byzantine architecture in Trebizond (modern Trapzoun). Both in Nicea and Trebizond the churches were museums, and the local populations wanted them to remain so. The government pushed the "Islamization" of these monuments as what seems to be part of a greater program of not only further restricting religious minorities in Turkey, but advancing an Islamic state. There were few outcries when Nicea and Trebizond were seized. But now, with the Hagia Sophia the whole world knows at stake, we are beginning to hear the voices of religious leaders, academics, art scholars, and journalists – and in Turkey as well!

Add to this the contrast the stance of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese toward the so-called "Mosque at Ground Zero" the Park 51 Islamic Center and Mosque just two blocks away from Ground Zero. During the controversy about whether the mosque had the legal right to be so close to the World Trade Center site, the Archdiocese stood affirmed the constitutional right of the mosque to be in this location, even when some government authorities were attempting to derail the rebuilding of Saint Nicholas at Ground Zero! While we questioned the wisdom and the appropriateness of the decision of the mosque to locate so close to the open wound of 9/11, we nevertheless affirmed our values of freedom of religion and mutual respect.

The Church stood on principle then. And it stands on principle now. For the Church is built on the Rock, and that Rock is Christ.

We will not sit idly or quietly by while the Hagia Sophia, is threatened once again by those who would appropriate its power for a cause not its own. It was built to worship the Holy Trinity, and as His All Holiness has said and Archbishop Demetrios has reiterated, if it is to be a house of worship again, it must be an Orthodox Christian house of worship. And we also recognize that legacy from Jerusalem so many centuries ago. There is room in our world for everyone.

Let Saint Nicholas Church at Ground Zero be a beacon of religious tolerance and interfaith dialogue, open to all who come in peace and respect. Let the rebuilding of this Greek Orthodox Church, destroyed by religious hatred, be an act of redemption, and act creation, and ultimately an act of love for all the peoples of the world. Thus would our tale of three Churches finally come to a happy conclusion.

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Additional Stories

Series titled "Memories of St. Nicholas" We headed to social media to ask people to share their memories of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church before it was destroyed on September 11, 2001. This story is about a worker at City Hall who frequented St. Nicholas.

Series titled: Memories of St. Nicholas. The story from an individual who frequented St. Nicholas during their lunch hour, celebrated joys, and commemorated their grandmother's one year memorial at St. Nicholas.

The Church of St. Nicholas that will be built at the heart of Ground Zero replacing the one destroyed on 9/11 will make the most stirring statement that any house of worship has made in the United States in a long time. It will tell America in brilliant visual images what we are, where we come from, and where we are going. A fusion of the past and the future is what characterizes the new St. Nicholas Church. Calatrava has taken his inspiration from some of the great churches in Constantinople in creating his design.

The new Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church at Ground Zero will be much more than a rebuilt parish. It will be a National Shrine of our Holy Archdiocese and a place of pilgrimage for our Nation and the whole world.
This recognition, this raising of the consciousness of every member of our Greek Orthodox Archdiocese to the value and significance of the Saint Nicholas National Shrine at Ground Zero is just the beginning. Saint Nicholas will be the only House of Worship in the entire sixteen-acre rebuilt World Trade Center site.

In her remarkable new book, “The Parthenon Enigma,” classical archaeologist Joan Breton Connelly fortuitously highlights the similarity between the rebuilding of the World Trade Center in the wake of 9/11, and the construction of that most famous of human monuments, the Parthenon. In the Persian sack of Athens in 480 B.C., the Older Parthenon, roughly in the same spot and yet unfinished, was destroyed in the fires that swept over the Acropolis. She writes of the motivations of Periklean Athens, a generation later, to rebuild the Parthenon:

Nearly eighteen hundred years ago, a famous man sardonically asked: “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” As Orthodox Christians, we know that there is an answer and that answer is “Very much!” In the same way, we have seen that New York City has much to do with Jerusalem – as the world’s two most famous cenotaphs are located in each. But we began last issue with three Churches in our tale, and it is time now to include that third House of the Lord, and to behold how all three are intertwined in the work of salvation and history.

On September 11, 2001, in an act of terror and hatred, our Nation was attacked and three thousand of our fellow human beings were mercilessly murdered. The horrific deaths of the innocent victims of that tragic day were brought about by a hatred fueled by perverse and perverted religious views. In the face of the horror of that day, we all witnessed the heroic love of the responders who gave their last measure to save others. This altruistic love is at the heart of the rebuilding of the Saint Nicholas Church at Ground Zero, a National Shrine of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

It should not difficult for anyone to see that Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church at the World Trade Center, a National Shrine of our Archdiocese, will truly be, as the Lord preached in the Sermon on the Mount, “the city set on a hill that cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14).

The original St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church cast a reverent and faithful shadow on the World Trade Center. Greeks purchased the row house in 1892 as a community home, and it became the Saint Nicholas Church in 1916. For many Greeks immigrants, it would have been their first stop after seeing the Statue of Liberty and disembarking from Ellis Island. The little church was a spiritual jewel, open to all. Generations of New Yorkers stopped in to light a candle, say a prayer, or just sit quietly.

On September 11, 2001 the barbaric attack not only destroyed the majestic Twin Towers but also the tiny yet historic St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, located south of the second tower of the World Trade Center. In the aftermath of its destruction, very little survived: two icons, one of St. Dionysios of Zakynthos and the other of the Zoodochos Pege, along with a few liturgical items, a book, and some candles.